No extra funding for probe team

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was told that extra funding will not be required for the investigations team on Sri Lanka appointed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as a result of the decision to postpone the consideration of the report on Sri Lanka.

The Programme Support and Management Services of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the decision to postpone the submission of the Sri Lanka report will raise financial implications.

These relate to the continuation of the investigations team appointed by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, until September 2015.

However the Programme Support and Management Services office said that funds allocated by the UN General Assembly should be sufficient and so there was no need to request additional funds.

The term of the investigations team was to end this month with the submission of the Sri Lanka report to the March session of the UNHRC which ended yesterday.

However, following a request made by the Government which was backed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UNHRC agreed to postpone the report till September. (Colombo Gazette)